…Trauma Continued
Trauma is such a broad term.
we have learned by definition it is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.
You don’t have to have gone to war to experience PTSD.
Trauma is Trauma.
Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk explains in his brilliant book and life’s work on the body and the trauma response,
The Body keeps the Score.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn are our bodies 4 responses to trauma.
This means trauma occurs and our physical body either fights, leaves, freezes or pleases.
These are our only options and often the body chooses one based on the level of threat and this limited reaction time can make it impossible to feel as though there is any control between reaction and stimulus, as Viktor Frankl puts it in his book A Man’s Search for Meaning.
My thought is sometimes our responses become so embedded in our personality, people begin to assume this trauma persona as their own identity.
The angry guy or the sad lady.
These “responses” become so comfortable.
Often staying in the misalignment feels more comfortable.
but Trauma occurs in the mind and the body but the Purusa is your true self, your heart of your conscious awareness.
Place a hand or two hands over your heart close your eyes and connect to that pure light of awareness deep within, untouched by this earthly experience
The trauma is not YOU, it happened to you.
It does not define you.
This is often true in a stroke body as the body recovers it tends to adapt or create compensations that can be quite unhealthy and hard on the body, such as the hip hike or foot drag.
But getting the body moving is often forced as the body recovers and the body will do whatever it takes to walk again, even if it means poor alignment.
You know I was reading something about how humans only adapt when there is a need or maybe it was evolve, humans only create significant evolutionary gains if something makes them change.
Isn’t that kinda funny?
So it makes sense,
Trauma happens…
Whether it’s acute, chronic, or complex,
AND the body responds accordingly
Trauma forces change.
So, is it a necessary part of life?
These responses become recorded or embedded in the brain and even if these responses are unhealthy or self-destructive the body has learned that worked to keep him alive, keep doing that. Is trauma not a part of our growth process on Earth?
Even in instances when the trauma is over, the body can still be reliving it and responding to it.
Yes, the body does keep a score or record of every experience.
This is not a “bad” thing. This is survival.
Yes, trauma is absolutely necessary if you ask me.
The healing occurs when thoughts arise such as, who am I without this trauma or rather who do I want to be despite this trauma?
Poor yet effective survival techniques need to be ‘turned off’ in a sense and the true self can begin to emerge. The heart centered self.
How in the heck?
Well, it lies in getting the body cultivate feelings of safety, love and joy again. Return to your true nature.
Deep slow breaths are love notes to your body, saying,
you are safe
you are loved
you are confident
you are whole
These feelings are innate to the body, and yet often can feel unfamiliar.
This can be a strange feeling, as their trauma is often what feels most comfortable.
But you must Turn into it.
These unfamiliar feelings end up resetting and restoring the nervous system, allowing the divine self to eMerge. This can be created in the body as often as you might need to with a yoga practice.
Connecting to the ‘true self’, not this ‘response self’, is the path to healing from any trauma.